1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communication systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless communication systems rely on data sharing arrangements to allow multiple users to share common resources. As shown in FIG. 1, a wireless data network 100 has a plurality of base stations 102, each base station 102 acting as a communications hub for a particular coverage area, or sector 104.
Active users 106 within a given sector 104 share common resources as they communicate with the base station 102. Each base station 102 may employ a resource assignment algorithm to ensure that the resources are fairly distributed among the users 106. Wireless data networks often use a timeslot-based resource sharing channel in a forward link of the system to allocate resources. More particularly, a scheduler algorithm in the base station 102 allocates timeslot resources to all access terminals in the sector 104. For wireless users 106, each user 106 is seen by the base station 102 as an individual access terminal.
Currently known systems allocate a temporary user identification code (e.g., a unicast access terminal identifier, or UATI) when a user 106 opens a communication session with the base station 102 in the network 100. This identification code is de-allocated when the session closes and is re-allocated to a different user 106. Thus, the base station 102 treats all users 106 in the system 100 interchangeably and is not able to offer different service levels to different users. Thus, it is currently not possible to provide user-based services (e.g., user-based QoS) that can vary from user to user.
There is a desire for a method that allow differentiation among users in a wireless data network.